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pH

F

fela

G'day,
I've been mash brewing for several years but almost always with little idea of mash and water pH, although I use a bit of citric and a bit of burton. I'm looking now to try a belgian wit and want to get a mash pH below 5. I noticed an old discussion where a couple of brewers used lactic and the mysterious 5.2. I'm having trouble finding lactic, (I live in western australia), and have no idea what 5.2 is and have never seen it around. I'm planning to use some acid malt and will probably go with phosphoric if I need more acid. On the same sort of topic I have read in Fix that an alternative test for the point at which to end sparging is a pH rise of 0.1 from the first runnings, would suggest the pH of sparge water is also pretty important
Happy brewing
Fela
 
Hi Fela,
Welcome to the board, you can get 5.2 from http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/ (no affiliation) as well as ph testing strips.
I usually use Phos acid for my mash ph corrections, the PH of sparge water is less impotant than that of the mash, if the sparge PH is too low you run the risk of extracting harsh flavors, Tannins ect. I believe as long as your sparge water ph is <7 you will not have any problems.
How about posting your Wit recipe, it's one of my favorite styles.

Cheers
Andrew
 
Cheers Andrew,
thanks for the reply. I'll be happy to post the wit recipe when I work it out, I firstly want to try a few small scale mashes to check pH. Any ideas on where to find lactic acid? The guy who runs the best homebrew shop in perth is having trouble finding some too. Chem labs will supply it, fairly pricey, but seem coy about whether the product is food grade. I'd be interested to know what sort of orange peel you use for wits?
Thanks
Rob
 
Hi Rob,

You might be able to get lactic acid from a Chemist, that's where I purchased mine, you will probably have to try a few different ones and explain why you want it.
As for the orange peel, dried bitter orange peel is impossible to get here so I just bought some green navel oranges and THINLY peeled them, scraped of the white pith and dried the peel in the sun. Chopped up fine and thrown in the boiler 5 mins before the end.
Brad has a superb recipe in the recipe archives here http://www.beersmith.com/Recipes/recipes/wit.htm
Cheers
Andrew
 
Andrew,
had a look at that recipe, my main concern at the moment is getting a malt that can handle such a large amount of adjunct. Fix suggests you want about 120 lintner to cope with 50%, the best candidate I have for base malt seems to be galaxy which by all accounts goes off like a bomb but only has a DP of 100 lintner at best. Any ideas?
Cheers
Rob
 
Rob that recipe uses wheat malt and as such you won't have any problems with starch conversion. I would only be concerned if I was using raw unmalted wheat. I use galaxy malt for high adjunct beers with great results so if it makes you feel better us that.
A protien rest will help things along as well.

Cheers
Andrew
 
Andrew,
belgian wits are traditionally made with unmalted wheat while the germans use malted wheat. What sort of % adjunct ie unmalted have you managed with the galaxy?
Rob
 
Rob,

I have used 50% raw wheat 50% galaxy malt with a protien rest and a couple of big scoops of rice hulls and a 90 minute mash. Efficiency was 67%, I usually get between 70 and 75% eff for a standard pilsner or ale.

Cheers
Andrew
 
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